09/25/2013

I am extremely happy to give some very wonderful information here about my Mozart research article "A Resolution of Mozart and Freemasonry: Enlightenment and the Persistence of Counter-Reformation", I have discovered that the wonderful Insula Orchestra of France, supported by the Conseil Generale of the Seine, conducted by the marvelous conductor Laurence Equilbey, has used my article in their "Pedagoie" listed in the interesting bibliography they employed to make their pedagogical point on the great composer. it seems that their site online regularly has a "Pedagogie" element connected with their upcoming performances. To wit : http://www.insulaorchestra.fr/mozartenfamille/resources/Mozart_Meistermusik.pdf

But, for me as very intense music lover, and thinker about music and Freemasonry, what is even more wonderful, and makes me unbelievably happy in life, is the following good news. The points I made in that article are ones that I hoped would not only clarify matters germane to Mozart and Freemasonry, but also perchance help clarify issues in the actual performance of Mozart's great works related to the issues of "Counter-Reformation" style in relation to Mozart appropriation of Masonic ideals. Obviously, this would especially relate to his Masses. Therefore, when I encountered the wonderful Youtube video of the Great Mass, with the Insula Orchestra with Laurence Equilbey; and heard the amazing performance, which to my ears was so filled with what I would term unique Counter-Reformation vigor, I couldn't help to wonder if my ideas played some small role in the exquisite conceptualization by the conductor Equilbey in this performance. I really have never heard a performance like this, and obviously the credit goes to the fact that the performers are of such a very high caliber. So, I feel there is room to wonder, given that they have used my paper as "Pedagogie" if my secret interior hope for my research ideas had effloresced in some way? Such a great performance moves me to wonder. Whatever the case, I am just delighted to be associated in any way with an orchestra and conductor that can actually deliver a gorgeous and stylistically appropriate performance of this towering work. The proof is in the pudding of a great performance, truly. Nothing else matters, ultimately, with great music. I really do feel as music-lover and Scholar of Freemasonry this is a real feeling of honor. My heart gives me the feeling that I would like to thank the orchestra and conductor, even though I have no connection with them beyond my ideas.

Here is the exquisite video. It says online that Equilbey had been invited to perform in the Great Mass in Salzburg, and so I wonder if this is even from Salzburg?!

Mozart’s fate after death is surely an odd one, if one takes political history and not just musical accomplishment into account. Of all the great composers, Mozart would seem to be the last genius one could make part of a campaign of political aggression. For the irreducible biographical fact that he was not the best at working the political system in his own day, which shows his essential devotion to his own artistic path above all, and distance from other interests. Any reflection on the extended meanings of the composer’s work, and his later influence, must be based in this basic fact of his biography. But the difficulty in assessing the closely- related issue of the centrality of his devotion to Masonic ideals in life and art has been complicated by precisely this odd posthumous fate for the musical genius. That the truth is stranger than any fiction one could conceive is thus magnificently clarified in Erik Levi’s magisterial Mozart and the Nazis. The book is a watershed cultural moment, as well as being a fine example of the historical craft, for it allows a number of vague and tangled misunderstandings in later Mozart historiography to be clarified.

The importance of telling this grim history, involving the very worst people misapplying virtually everything about the great man, is not only that Levi has nailed a bleak period in the history of aesthetics. It allows us first of all to see how distant from a coherent conception of the great musician many were for a long time, and how such affected others who were not even directly involved, through no fault of their own. Indeed, the very symbol of religious tolerance and respect of tradition in Mozart’s famous chant-based Men at Arms duet from Die Zauberfloete seems a poignant indictment, with martial feel in itself, against the literally heavily -armed and history-destroying Nazis; and thus Mozart’s music itself can be said to contain its own inherent aesthetic comment and rebuke. But history is necessary here, for as the coherence of Levi’s conclusions show, they make further speculations about Mozart in general music-politics warranted simply by dint of the very odd and irrefutable centrality of the composer for the important example of Nazi self- conceptions and propaganda. Yet there also seem to be wider meanings in the matter. Surely, it must always reluctantly be admitted that the Nazis in some way or other shaped the very world we have come to live in, often by reaction of course. So I will suggest, it is the ramifications for later understanding that gives this watershed study its heightened relevance.

Levi removes any question that Mozart and his great music became an important prong in the Nazi war- propaganda machine, but strangely also in their own bizarre and numinous self- assessments. In the course of accomplishing this melancholic work, an entire chapter is devoted to Nazi efforts to cope with Mozart’s very historically evident devotion to Freemasonry. Significantly, I believe, Levi’s careful anatomy of their effort also contains the key to understanding the related issue of how Masonry has come to be so misunderstood in relation to his music later on, by a way of an unsuspected surprise.

Indeed, the actual Nazi trajectory in dealing with this issue was not initially what one’s habitual intuition would make one think. Even though “on the ground”, as opposed to in aesthetic deliberation, they were pursuing a campaign of terror and destruction against Masons themselves and their Lodges from the start, as they did for other groups as well. Still, it is worth pausing and reflecting once again in preparation for such quirky dementedness, how the serious craft of history often thwarts our expectations in peculiar realms. The very subtitle of this book (“How the Third Reich Abused a Cultural Icon”), which is certainly an appropriate description, would lead us to believe that our most lock-step propaganda expectations would be fulfilled, For propaganda is not ever a subtle endeavor, and seemingly nothing about the Nazis was subtle in any sphere. Yet the actual history becomes more strange, and telling.

The many conspiracy- theories about Mozart’s death, and the infamous, hoary trope that “The Masons Killed Mozart” found their most avid exponent in a disgusting Nazi enthusiast of the period, and thus would seem to have been an attractive sop for a tyrannical regime trying to explain away Mozart’s Freemasonry. When one reads Levi’s accounting of the work of the horrible conspiracy-monger Mathilde Ludendorff, one is just ready for the next conceptual domino to fall historically in the Nazis’ gleeful appropriation of that mess as their own. But that is not what actually happened, and in that lies the grist for further understanding. In fact both Hitler and Goebbels had such and unhinged belief in the aesthetic supremacy of their own vision that it is clear that the normal slings and arrows of propaganda were not good enough for the Mozart case! Indeed, Goebbels with almost incredibly chaotic self-assessment of the regime’s intents, warned of, “the potentially destructive impact of Ludendorff’s writing, which he believed was destabilizing a carefully controlled campaign to extol the virtues of German supremacy in the literary and musical arts.” (p. 40) As if their entire rapacious approach to the world were not itself built on destabilizing any sense of what things really were in the first place, both artistic and political.

Worse yet, Hitler himself initially did not seem to think, amazingly, that there was any necessity of actually trying to negate Freemasonry’s role in the construction of The Magic Flute, even though he had written conspiratorially about the Freemasons in Mein Kampf. Levi notes that fairly early-on Hitler actually rejected a new “Aryan libretto” for The Magic Flute, because he, “had no intention of looking ridiculous in the eyes of the world [!]” (p.41). Here I feel an interesting methodological issue enters in Levi’s treatment of the matter. There is so much in this particular sphere of inquiry that is almost unbelievable for its unexpected thwarting of cultural expectations of what we heretofore have known of the Nazis and art, that I feel it is utterly understandable that Levi has clearly chosen a very reserved manner in dealing with it all. But I feel strongly justified in drawing out, in a more reflective mode here, the substratum- of -meaning that is implied by these outlandish facts. To wit, it is not just that we can marvel that the egomaniac Hitler, for his own reasons, apparently fretted Aryanizing Die Zauberfloete because it would it make him look ridiculous in the eyes of the world. That of course this was set against some of the most ridiculously cruel actions against humanity already undertaken at this period in the regime’s history, must be set strongly as background for truly understanding the surpassingly odd hermeneutic that apparently obtained for him vis-à-vis Mozart. It is only with this hermeneutical precision, I would argue based on Levi, that the utterly special nature the Mozart case becomes clear.

Further, only with this sense can we truly grasp the deeper meaning of the well-nigh incredible quotation that Levi provides from Hitler himself. One stares in near disbelief that this argument about The Magic Flute was actually made part of a Hitler speech at a 1937 Nuremberg rally. Levi quotes Hitler’s own words: “Only a nationally disrespectful man would condemn Mozart’s Zauberfloete because its libretto might oppose his ideological views.” (p.42) Again, I would assert that this attempt at neutral –sounding language in one of the most violently ideological persons in human history tells us clearly that with Mozart there was something altogether different and spiritually vexing, precisely because they held this matter in a special spiritual locus for themselves, revolting as that seems. For this can hardly have been a largesse or untypical tolerance on his part, and should make us see all the more that the Mozart case was quite special or unique. Surely one would expect a “take no prisoners” approach to historical inconveniences in their Mozart campaign as well, as they adopted in practically everything else. But again, this is not what we find. I believe we can speculate in light of Levi’s precise historical anatomy to the contrary, that Mozart represented a certain bizarre “life as art” apotheosis in their Nazi world-view, which they delusionally felt to be invincible, culturally, practically and even militarily. Thus not needing to be defended in their usual way. In such a delusional ambit, an aesthetically invincible matter would only be sullied by use of the usual propagandistic techniques.

Generally speaking, the nexus of issues to which this matter points is more often raised in relation to Hitler’s feelings about Wagner, surely less surprisingly that with Mozart. Surely, the Wagner matter has been well surveyed and folded into our historical understanding by now, so we can see the difference with Mozart case immediately. But with all due deference to those who actually admire Wagner’s output generally, all must concede that the aesthetic distance between Wagner’s artistic vision (even charitably considered) is closer to the Nazi world-view than Mozart’s ever could have been made to be. Therefore, the Nazi treatment of Mozart takes on a special meaning that it could not with Wagner. That is saying something indeed, given the centrality of Wagner for them.

For us at an historical distance now, what insight can be drawn from these strange facts, of both the initial reluctance to engage the conspiracy theories, and their delusory idealization of their own views in relation to that reluctance? This case is almost unique, to my mind, in the sense that so much of what the Nazis did was conceived explicitly and unapologetically for a propaganda aim. This matter of Mozart and Freemasonry, then, takes us queasily close to a dementedly numinous sense that they actually believed; and was not just the famous Hitlerian repeated-lie that would become the truth for all. To grasp it we have to, at least analytically, allow that the Nazi conception included some true sense that they were deploying something “noble” in their own character, construed as some sort of noble Germanness. This is inherently distinct from propaganda as it came to be known, especially by the Nazis themselves, tellingly. It in fact recalls the original, spiritual meaning of propaganda in the Propaganda Fidei of the Roman Catholic Church, and this gives us a clue as to its later ramifications. (Though let me add clearly I am not adumbrating any sense that the Roman Catholic Church had anything to do with it.) Yet the crucial take-way for us is that the actual artistic sublimity of Mozart could be made into a counterfeit (for us, not for them) sublime notion of the most demented kind.

Please note the distinction here. It may be depressing to read Levi’s account of how the entire war effort was given a raison d’etre in fighting for the greatness of German Art as represented in Mozart. It is grotesque, but believable. But these matters have been understood for quite some time in a general way, before the publication of Levi’s book. Merely as a for- instance, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. presented the Nazi propaganda film “Wunsch-Konzert” a number of years ago. Since I attended that presentation, I can confirm that the Film Curator’s introduction to the film highlighted this very matter of raison d’etre described later and fleshed-out by Levi, and it was also plenty evident from the film itself. (As an aside, it is a little curious that Levi does not focus really on this particular movie, but on others by the same director, for surely this one makes his point evident in an outrageous way, utterly confirming of his insights.)

But the real conundrum is in how the Nazis actually thought that what amounts to clearly to a mere a propaganda trope (even by their own usual praxis) was in the Mozart- case part of a larger notion of ideal German art. To such an extent, that they did not even feel it necessary to defend it by negating Freemasonry in the usual way. Even though Freemasonry was itself the very rebuke of their whole program, and well known for being so. That’s the rub. So the whole matter quirkily seemed to have an almost ontologically ideal status, such that it was invincible for them. Not just a matter of propagandistic defense, like virtually everything else. This surely deserves to be recognized as bizarre behavior in men whose very conceptions of life after all required notions of “constant war” in everything in life generally, which by definition always involves the expectation that everything must be defended or aggressed, but, apparently not with Mozart. Normally, that means practically destroying enemies at every single opportunity, and there is no doubt from Mein Kampf that Hitler considered Freemasons an enemy worthy of destruction.

So what other conclusion can be drawn from the strange initial unwillingness to engage or even condone the easy anti-Masonic conspiracy tropes? Only that the Mozart case represented a bizarre spiritual idealization for them which surpassed even their strange tropes of idealization with Wagner and Bruckner. That is the almost incredible conclusion that Levi’s analysis allows, to my mind. Of course, naturally later, it is important to note, as their delusory world unraveled, they stumbled into every violent trope they could get their hands on apropos Masonry, and they did with everything else in the downward spiral. If they could interchange the words Quam olim Abrahae promisiti in the Requiem for nationalist doggerel, it is clear there would be no nadir at some point in dealing with a fraternity supposedly in cahoots with the Jews. Still, I argue, the initial unwillingness in the earlier period of their regime tells the underlying story.

This matter can be profitably compared and contrasted with another totalitarian tyrant. Namely, compared to that of Lenin after he had finally gained power. Initially, he was set on leaving all the arts to wither s in the dust of his revolutionary vision, as being of zero importance. But he was quickly convinced by those around him that a brilliant Soviet arts-world would be a powerful diplomatic-propaganda tool. Thus in the Soviet case, the many great artistic achievements (from Shostakovich from to Suetin, say) had their ultimate genesis in the purest propaganda intent from the start, at least on the part of the leadership.

The contrast is very telling with the Nazi case. Mozart’s Masonry was not initially seen as a conceptual threat by the Nazis, precisely because their aesthetic view really was an aesthetic view, one that reached again towards some weird apotheosis of religiosity almost. Not simply propaganda. Of course, we hasten to add a completely demented aesthetic and religiosity.

So in a sense, the post-war scholarly attempt to limn the true meaning of Masonry for Mozart correspondingly would have been easier if the Nazi view of the arts had resembled more the Soviet approach. That is, if it had been entirely instrumental, and thus simply propagandized. Instead, I would argue, the Nazi example created a sort of conceptual quicksand from which it is has been hard for some to extricate themselves, through no particular fault of their own perhaps. Rather the Nazis created a conceptual morass, in having conceived truly (for their demented limits) of their Mozart campaign as a deeply echt spiritual purpose. Though for us today it could not seem more ridiculous and faulty.

Sadly, therefore, the actual analysis of Mozart and Masonry, in which particular matters of religious and spiritual aims are so crucial, has been badly affected by this Nazi tendency. Further, this matter likely touches on the Nazi use of propaganda in the Mozart case in the original spiritual sense of Propaganda Fidei. For naturally, there was arguably later the felt-need for a compensation by scholars to this very off-putting use of spiritual ideation.

As I detailed in my article “A Resolution of Mozart and Freemasonry: Enlightenment and Persistence of Counter-Reformation,” there has been a very scattered tendency to over-estimate Mozart’s relation to the Enlightenment, and underestimate his rather conservative religious (“Counter-Reformation”) make-up in some ways. As if over-emphasizing Enlightenment tropes, would subliminally de-fang the conceptual insanity bequeathed by the Nazi example, because the religious angle had been tarnished or tainted somehow by the bizarre quasi-religiosity of the actual Nazi view. In this regard, it is worth noting that one of the wretched writers in Ludendorff’s conspiratorial vein, Daumer, actually came up with a theory that Mozart encrypted The Magic Flute with a secret pro-Catholic and anti-Masonic schema, and Daumer unsurprisingly roped in the Men at Arms duet as supposed proof, merely because of the chant base. Thus, it is crucial to emphasize that the notion of taking Mozart’s Catholicism as central in relation to his Masonic ideals was besmirched by this demented pedigree. It is little wonder, then, that this crucial element has been downplayed later in reaction, and extraneous ones brought in.

For surely an entirely instrumental approach to arts generally (a la Lenin and the Soviets) would have been an easier conceptual ambit in which to later parse Mozartean matters after the war, had Soviet affairs taken them in that direction, for sake of argument. Clearly we are in an analytically bizarre place at the bottom of the aesthetic barrel, when we are having to compare tyrannical approaches. But, even at an absolute nadir, it is simply harder to conceptually disentangle that which has become mixed-up with quasi-religious lunacy at some point, precisely because it is often so a-typical, as it was evidently in the Mozart case with the Nazis. Rather than something in lock step with the “science” of propaganda.

Collaterally, the bind that this likely presented for later scholars is perhaps most evocatively seen rather in one of the most famous performers in the post-war era, Herbert van Karajan. Since a sound-picture is perhaps worth a thousand words, we could say. Karajan’s postwar hyper-spiritualized approach to Mozart and other music (not much in evidence in his wartime recordings significantly!) caused even his own cautious orchestra members to complain that he scarcely looked at them, conducting with his eyes constantly closed, as if lost in prayer, or some self-assumed spiritual plateau. The resultant somewhat neutral- sounding approach, evoking in intent an explicitly spiritual intent, did not preclude producing some great performances with Mozart (and surely Karajan’s Cosi with Schwarzkopf counts as that). Nor, I would argue, mutatis mutandis, did it preclude some great scholarship being produced later, even touching on Freemasonry. Yet it is worth identifying it all as a significant trope of reaction against the hyper-spiritualized approach of the Nazis to Mozart, which of course had at its ultimate aesthetic manifestation in a real-life and unimaginable blitzkrieg. In that light, Karajan’s famous otherworldly approach is legible as the reaction it is, and let it stand as well for a musical sound-picture evocation of the hermeneutical temptations of Mozart scholars as well.

The long-term result is, as I show in my article, that Mozart’s complex and deeply Masonic bridging between vigorous religious and general conceptual tendencies of his time is often essentially obliterated. To grasp this we have to see Mozart as operating aesthetically in a dynamic tension, expressed in the equilibrium of his musical genius. In addition we have to grasp the obvious role of Freemasonry’s professed goals as central to it. Not as an unlikely super-refinement of some spiritualized and outré possibility. Thus the faulty temptation is rather than disentangle the knot of quasi-religious Nazi idealization of Mozart, attractive compensatory heuristics and hermeneutics have been chosen instead by scholars. This has everything to do at length, with a matter that is certainly beyond my reflections here. Namely, the massive continued importance of Germanic cultures, in both Mozart scholarship and performance after the Nazi period. Something about which Levi has a lot to say, and not all of it exactly flattering. Yet plenty that is praiseworthy as well, considering the past that had to be overcome. But even the best there could hardly help reacting to the past. This fact alone makes it clear how a substratum of idealization and hermeneutical reaction could affect all of Mozart scholarship by way of this specific influence.

The wonderful thing about Erik Levi’s great analysis for further scholarship on Mozart’s Masonry specifically is that it shows how this obliterating tendency got started. I believe this to be a solid extrapolation from his ideas, but I emphasize that it is my interpretation and not Levi’s. To wit, the bizarre idealization of Nazi spiritual aims, led later to a massive, and perhaps often unconscious compensation of both purely Enlightenment themes, and also a scholarly preference for what might be called a grab bag of Enlightenment effluvia. This is surely an odd fate for those more flotsam Enlightenment themes as well, which mostly would seem not amenable to being mixed up in such a thing. The sui generis nature of Mozart’s personality is certainly relevant here, but not so much to reduce our surprise that so much could be misused in every conceivable direction against his simple devotion to Masonic ideals. Rather than focusing on the really perfectly obvious conservative religious nature of Mozart’s balancing, in relation to his personal grasp of Masonic tolerance, a lot else has been brought in. His letters make this utterly clear the folly of this approach, so how can it be so misunderstood? The extent of the misunderstanding almost begs therefore for an explanation of hermeneutical reaction as the likely etiology. So we could say, instead focusing on various conceptual fads which Mozart was supposedly taken by-- again just for example and for sake of argument -- symbolized archtetypally by the very appearance of the Mesmerist doctor in Cosi fan Tutte, we should focus on more obvious matters. Anyways, it would have taken a philosophical and religious genius on the level of an Albert Pike, rather than a musical genius like Mozart, to make some eclectic, yet powerfully fine use of the Mesmerist mess (as I detailed in my article on Pike’s Library a while ago in Heredom).

Ironically, and merely to extenuate this example a bit more for potential clarification of contingent deductions, there is scarcely anything to work with apropos Mozart and Mesmerism. Yet the very fact that the genesis of Bastien und Bastienne was related to Mesmer, and that “Ecco il medico” is sung in Cosi, seems to have generally opened the flood -gates to assume Mozart’s great interest in spiritual wackiness. Whereas the perfectly obvious fact from his letters and works themselves that he was deeply interested mostly in conservative Roman Catholicism, and artistically in its locally persisting Counter-Reformation artistic tropes, is ignored. Erik Levi's book helps us see how the bizarre spiritualization of the Nazis with Mozart, in a bizarre revival perhaps for the antique Propaganda Fidei approach, made a whole generation of Mozart scholars shy away from Mozart’s real aesthetic tack: The balancing between conservative Counter-Reformation notions and Enlightenment ideals related to the Lessing-esque toleration of Freemasonry. For the real story is that in between his conservative Roman Catholicism and Enlightenment zeitgeist interests, Mozart the Wise preaches tolerance in his masterful musical development, if we are alert to his lesson. So mote it be.

The gentleness and subtlety of this Masonic lesson, expressed so powerfully by stylistic paradox in Mozart’s greatest works, raises one slight quibble with Levi’s virtually perfect handling of Masonic issues. Namely, that he leaves a matter (intentionally?) somewhat a bit vague in reference to the extent to which the Masonic nature of The Magic Flute was even known generally before Otto Jahn brought it to the fore in 1859. In discussing this earlier period Levi observes: “Against the background of the continuing popularity of Die Zauberfloete during this period, the Austrian authorities sought to divert attention away from the Masonic elements in the opera by issuing a brochure in 1794 which claimed that Mozart and his librettist Schikaneder had composed the work as an allegory for the French Revolution with an anti-Jacobin message.” (p. 35) Here a distinction is necessary, to my mind, between the “background” of what was popularly known, and what was known specifically within the Austrian bureaucracy of that day, which more particularly would have affected such authorities. In that distinction lies the problem with his statement, for I do not believe that the Masonic nature of The Magic Flute was known by a general audience much before the mid- nineteenth century.

As one of the foremost scholars of Freemasonry Margaret Jacob has made clear, that Austrian bureaucracy was notable for an “Erastian”-derived political view, which I noted in turn, specifically manifested in the Febronian political fashions of the day. But, that the background smell of such officially bureaucratically-held views, derived ultimately from the Swiss radical Thomas Erastus, may have bothered the authorities who produced the pamphlet in light of the French Revolution more than the constellation of ideas more contiguous there, and more germane to Masonry specifically. That is, the underlying Erasmian-liberal background of Freemasonry, which was often admixed with Erastian views. Liberal and religiously inclusive ideals coming from Erasmus, and so similar to Freemasonry would have had a less threatening fragrance for sure.

Therefore, the assumption that the “background” issue was one in which there was a popular knowledge of the Masonic nature of the opera is not really warranted, to my mind. For their actions likely more a response to fear specific as to the rumor-world of the Austrian bureaucracy, rather than truly “popular” knowledge amongst the masses at all. It speaks more, perhaps also, to the conundrum of an Austrian imperial view whose very bureaucracy embraced some Masonic ideals itself, yet clearly became fearful enough of it, to prohibit it. In addition, the extent to which these issues may have been based ultimately on the confusion and potent paranoia of Masonic-Jesuit complot theory, which I touched on in my article, is so vast as to complicate an simple assertion of the matter surely.

This does not mean we should deny the complexity or perhaps conflicting nature of the Masonic experience itself in Mozart’s cultural world. There is no need for a Panglossian resolution, even about Mozart’s devotion to Masonry. At the same time, no one could possibly dispute that Freemasonry on the Continent, and perhaps pre-eminently in the Germanic world, was in close proximity to a variety of unorthodox Enlightenment phenomena and ideas, and proto-Enlightenment ones as well. It is worth emphasizing further some of these might have contributed beneficially to aspects of Masonic history. Yet that is not the point, at least for a discussion of the mostly conservative Mozart. We miss the forest for the trees utterly, if we avoid the central fact that it was the more basic and underlying goals of Freemasonry – embracing liberal and conservative, as well as Enlightenment and pious themes as well -- that were, and are, crucial to understanding Mozart’s actual musical development.

This may also relate to why Masons themselves have not been typically, shall we say, so brimming with ready clarifications in the larger world about our esteemed Composer-Brother who has gone to the Celestial Lodge. The reasons should be equally clear. Masons are sworn to protect the reputation of their Brothers, even in death. In the face of very sizeable amounts of anti-Masonic rhetoric and opprobrium, it is clear that Masons for a long time chose not to be too precise about the fact that Brother Mozart’s representation of Masonic matters in The Magic Flute was not exactly “by the plumb”. With gradual improvements in societal atmosphere, and perhaps even more importantly with the publication in more recent decades of clarifying works like J. M. Robert’s The Mythology of Societies and De Hoyos and Morris’ Is it True What They Say About Freemasonry?, there is an aperture for change. The Masonic Brotherhood is in a more inviting social ambit to make it more bluntly clear that Mozart had the deepest Masonic intents, but sometimes, especially with The Magic Flute, a few distractions and digressions from what Masons would call a “regular” Masonic portrayal. In the end, that he still managed to evoke the deepest ideals of the Craft is only a testament to his profound vision and music genius in relation to the deepest goals of Freemasonry.

It is worth noting too that though expert clarifications in Masonic scholarship have lessened the anti-Masonic bother in some way, further elucidations about Mozart are particularly needed still. This is because it is curious in relation to The Magic Flute that some of the worst and historically witless anti-Masonic tropes survive. One needs only mention the number of overwrought scholars, who in following Brigid Brophy’s now distant Mozart fantasy-interpretations, are convinced that Mozart’s great Masonic Opera is thematically notable mostly for “Masonic” misogyny! The simple contextual matter of history itself that Freemasonry was, comparatively, a vastly more inclusive realm towards women for its time than many other contemporaneous cultural realms, does not seem to make a dent for such overwrought theorists. That misprision is a great indicator of the potentially fraught nature for interpretation of Mozart’s Masonry generally. Further, we should not be surprised to find the aggressive masculinity of Nazi conceptions as a background for such, again by way of de facto hermeneutical reaction to the same.

Such a misprision bears specifically on a matter, which could be amplified more than can be done here, but will not be for sake of coherence. Namely, that if what many of us consider to be the greatest music ever written – the still- living proof of the virtues of humankind expressed in art – can be so misunderstood in relation to its genesis in the virtues of a specific cultural realm (Freemasonry),which the composer himself identified by sticking- with it in the face of even legal prohibition, then we should tread carefully with tangential interpretations indeed. Ascriptions of “Misogyny in The Magic Flute” are wrong not just because they flout the actual cultural history of Freemasonry, but more generally because they represent an entire escapist attitude in musicology, by which the central attitudes and evident devotions of the genius who wrote the works are somehow secondary to something that should not be treated as more than a gloss in his biography.

Besides which, surely the great tenderness towards his wife so evident in his letters, more warm and loving than most men were to women at this period, would seem to be worth a lot in itself. Therefore, I actually think the charge of misogyny is a great calumny against the composer and Freemasonry. Yet surely this whole digressive matter is just a sloppy part of that conceptual quicksand aforementioned, with its unpleasant etiology ultimately perhaps in hermeneutical reactions to Nazi conceptions. Rather than curse those scholars, who are probably well intentioned in some way, I will leave off by accentuating the positive. By looking forward to the massive monograph soon forthcoming on “Adoptive Masonry” by the excellent Masonic scholar Jan Snoek, who did such a incisive job in moderating my panel at the recent International Conference on the History of Freemasonry.

Therefore, in summary, if we look dispassionately at the facts of Mozart’s output we are more likely to untangle retrospectively the conundrum set- up tragically the Nazis’ misuse of Mozart. In tandem with clarifying how it has hermeneutically blinkered many on the subject of his Masonry by way of reaction. There is no doubting simply that this great man was involved in religious matters by writing great works for the Church, as well as in Enlightenment themes as seen in his operas and elsewhere. His masterpieces are proof that he was not fractured in these seeming contrasts. Therefore, Ockham’s Razor itself suggests that Freemasonry is simply the most likely explanation of his great ability to balance so much artistically. Similarly, contemporary analysis of his music generally, and of his Masonry specifically, need not be pushed to one extreme or another to make a point, or to distance itself from bizarre idealizations of the past in order to be on safe ground. Mozart’s Masonry will never be clear with such compensations. The actual history of the Nazi misuse of Mozart is outlandishly depressing enough already, and we do not need reactions to distant echoes in order to condemn that past, or be safe from its reach.

In the end, that some are still drawn to essentially compensatory views for Mozart- analysis is evidenced not even so much by various well-intentioned musicologists. Even if they both seem misconceive the essential thrust of Freemasonry, and the nature of their own compensatory analytic tendencies in relation to the depressing substratum of the past, they clearly have a good purpose in mind.

Poignantly, en fin, perhaps we can take Alfred Einstein’s treatment by the Nazi propaganda machine as an indication of another way in which a limited hermeneutic ambit has been created for Mozart analysis for such well-intentioned scholars, but again for what did not happen strangely. Ironically, even in relation to scholars who would never consider citing him because his work is taken as so old-fashioned, superseded, or just fuddy-duddy. Again, the seemingly amazing fact that, as Levi details, the Nazis were not as obsessed with shutting-down Einstein’s influence makes our point again. Even in the face of his caustic criticisms of their regime, and their aesthetic specifically, they eventually allowed the publication of his revision of the Koechel catalogue! This surprising treatment of this famous Jewish scholar and appreciator of Mozart’s Masonry allows us a curious confirmation of our basic sense that long-distant Nazi insanity on Mozart continues to influence some by way of reaction. For in a very odd “unintended –consequence” of a sort, that curious fact that the Nazis did not obliterate this most famous Jewish Mozart scholar’s influence may have correspondingly contributed to Masonry’s actual ideals being more subliminally suspect or dismissed by later scholars, at least compared to those tempting Enlightenment effluvia, which ironically often had more unsavory associations in history than Masonry.

On some level that the Nazis did not obliterate more of that attitude may have strangely functioned as a way that has made later thinkers want to de-emphasize Masonry real importance. In a contemporary world where Ludendorff’s nasty fictions of “The Masons Killed Mozart” still regularly get play in contemporary pulp- novels on Mozart, it is hardly far-fetched to see the reverberations of Nazi idealizations still affecting more serious matters like musicological scholarship by way of distant reaction. With Levi’s analysis now available we can see that these shameless novelists in their trafficking in ideas that were even too base for Hitler and Goebbels for a time (!), and are strangely indicative of the continuing underlying bind that conceptions of Mozart’s Masonry are put in. The fact that such novels still exist and can be bought online shows that it is still in the air. Not that serious scholars would accept such rubbish, for they don’t. But the matter signals that there still is some nether world of bizarre ideation still to be reacted- to in the conceptual ether, even by scholarship.

The wretched Nazi pedigree of these ideas does not seem to bother such novelists, but who would expect much people who write such pulp? But it should be a tip-off for scholars, who naturally want to be more careful. More surprising would be the distrust by scholars of, or turning-way from the seemingly obvious fact of deep Masonic ideals qua a balancing religious and conceptual ideals in Mozart’s personal and musical development. Let me stress again at the end that this is so even if by way of well-intentioned reaction to the past. Now that we have Erik Levi’s historical analysis we can also have a potential etiology of how the scholarly avoidance gained traction. Thus, still avoiding it would be tantamount to an acceptance, by way of reaction, of the very bind that the Nazis put the composer’s art and reputation originally in those terrible years.

Dedication: I would like to dedicate this essay to the memory of my German grandparents, Peter Paul Fuchs, the German judge-representative on an important International War Reparations court, and his wife Dr. Erna Fuchs-Bierig, from whom I was inspired in my love of Mozart, and by their reflections on living through those years in Germany.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------This interpretive essay was recently published in the excellent and widely read Masonic magazine The Working Tools (TWT) March 2013

05/20/2013

I want to share a wonderful lecture and presentation that uses some insights from my Mozart paper, and has some kind words about my effort. One of the best things in scholarship is to have one's insights employed for branches of thought that expand the original idea. I also thought the presentation had several very touching moments.

05/18/2012

A while ago I rather unceremoniously put my article on the Scottish Rite and the American South on this blog. I am happy that the article, which I don't think was given a terribly elegant launch by me here on this very basic blog, will be published by an important Masonic research publication in the near future, which has also published many significant scholars in the field of Masonic studies. That article, written before I was named Scholar of the Supreme Council here in DC, has gotten some good feedback. I can't help but feel that the reason is that I strove to reflect the most critical standards of general approach to matters dealing with the history of the American South. Every field of inquiry seems to have its own somewhat bespoke standards, reflecting matters mostly of emphasis, while of course existing in the realm of more general standards of critical honesty for scholarship.

While working generally in cultural history, I am not a specialist in the South per se. Even so I tried diligently to reason about the Scottish Rite's history within the framework of the approach currently accepted by experts in that field. I am proud of the result, and happy it will be given a classy publication more than my bare-bones blog here.

But in a way what has made me happiest is that since I wrote the article so much that I have rather serendipitously encountered while doing research has bolstered or confirmed some of the insights I put in that article. In fact just today I received the latest issue of the Bulletin of the German HIstorical Institute (Supplement 8 -- 2012) , which is located in DC, in my very neighborhood in fact. In fact I have attended many lectures at the Institute, and have been getting their lavishly produced Bulletin for almost 20 years I believe. I have always had an interest in German history, as my Grandfather Peter Paul Fuchs was on the 5-member Reparations Court as a Bundesrichter.

Yet, in fact this very interesting Bulletin of theirs has more than strictly German history, and I have read many interesting articles on a variety of topics through the years. Lo and behold, today I opened it up and there is a very apposite article which ties in beautifully with my research article I have been discussing, and which is on this blog in prep for the upcoming hard-copy publication.

To wit, a scholar named Sebastian Jobs who has received one of the GHI's prestigious postdoctoral fellowship describes his ongoing research in a way that dove-tails excellently with a point in my article. The name of his research is "Rumors of Revolt: Uncertain Knowledge of Slave Insurrection in the Antebellum South." Significantly and insightfully Jobs describes how his research is indicating the importance in the study of the Antebellum South for the phenomenon of fearful rumor of insurrection. This ties in well with the notion I described of Frederick Dalcho's very probable fear of being tagged as one of the "Illuminati" at this period who were, it might have been feared, promoting French Revolution style fighting. it also shows generally that reasoning from probabilities of these kind of "uncertain" phenomena, meet the standards of scholarship in this special field. I cite Larry Tise's indications of these fears as current at the period and ripe for rumor, and make deductions on the impetus for Dalcho's actions on that basis. I believe the fact that Sebastian Jobs, working on the cutting edge in this field is showing the scholarly importance of these types of rumor-information for cultural deduction in that period, is in itself a kind of broad confirmation of the general tack I took in that paper.

05/01/2012

Many admire how beautiful and conceptually rich The Philalethes has become under the editorship of Shawn Eyer. I am so proud to have an article in the most recent issue. It is beautiful...and the result of serendipity! As I say in the piece, it resulted from a research happenstance, while pursuing another line of inquiry entirely as part of my work as Scholar of the Supreme Council here in DC. It involved finding an article by the Masonic scholar and Rabbi Hersch Geffen. I am so grateful that in our magnificent library we have the complete back issues of the Philalethes. In it I found the article by Geffen that utterly confirmed and even extended a research hunch I had before about Maimonides and Masonry, expressed in my article "The Impetus for the Grand Lodge of 1717" at masonicsourcebook.com. The fascinating details are in the article. The great serendipity is that Shawn Eyer is a collector of materials about Geffen, and was planning a tribute to him, and in fact he told me that he even has materials from Geffen from the 30's and the 40's. So it was perfect timing! If you are interested in the origins of the ideas of Masonry, I highly suggest you get a copy of the beautiful Philalethes. And Bro. Eyer gets the best cover art too!

As a side-bar let me note this. I was also happy in playing a part in highlighting Geffen because it shines an interesting light on Jews in the American South. It seems in popular culture that concept is limited to the movie Driving Miss Daisy. That was a good movie, but we need better than that. And that well-known book about Jews in the Confederacy is, well, of course not unproblematic. Geffen, as rabbi in Savannah is the most cultural interesting character, and it is my hope that Bro. Eyer will write a book or article on him!

01/19/2012

REVIEW NOTICES:

Since I have one of my research papers actually posted on this rather unprepossessing blog of mine here, I wanted to help potential readers with some information on critical reviews of my work, from some of the most distinguished venues for scholarship on Freemasonry. I do this simply because the diffuse character of the internet being what it is, it is necessary to have some more reliable gauge for scholarly intent. I love Freemasonry profoundly, and I know that the only way to seriously continue revealing its many virtues, in an academic frame, is with unapologetically critical scholarship, which can be supported by documented sources. It is worth noting that many areas in the field of religion seem to be going in the opposite direction at this point. This makes the commitment to a serious approach amongst reputable Masonic scholars all the more important a stance to take. I am blessed to work in an actual ambit of the highest scholarly intent, care and dissemination, and I have learned by truly great example. So, the very nature of Freemasonry with its principled care for release of information, makes working in an internet frame intrinsically somewhat needful of care and caution. Therefore, I would like to make public that the most hallowed of Masonic research publications, the Ars Quatuor Coronatum in England, has recently reviewed my research recently and assessed it as "very careful and well-documented." In addition, the very distinguished and important Philalethes has appraised my research as "most impressive." I am deeply grateful and humbled by these kind comments from by very distinguished Brethren. They mean more to me than the entire spurious maelstrom of internet opinion.

07/27/2011

The Russian Tower of Babble

In re: "Decoding the Symbols: Did Masonic Psychology Inspire the Oslo Attacks?" on RT TV Cable, with Alex Jones

About nine months ago I was on a cruise in Asia, and one of the few stations on our little TV set was, strangely, "RT" which stands for Russian TV. I was a sort of captive audience for it, therefore, and it gave me a unique insight into the world of state- sponsored conspiracy-hyping. At first I could not figure out what their "angle" was. But then I just realized that the only angle was to make their own domestic problems look less severe by highlighting the difficulties in other spots of the world. A pretty simple desire, and since there are always lots of problems everywhere, one that is certain to keep them busy. But please note that it leads to simply never figuring anything out. If you are looking for insight into difficult matters, you have to at least occasionally reach a plateau of insight, and thence continue your trek. RT seems to be a new phenomenon on such a large scale. It is devoted, by contrast, to never reaching a plateau of insight, and instead further and further vexing reality.

Well, for vexation , you could not have a better example than their "coverage" of so-called connection of the terrible events in Norway and the Masonic Lodge. As a Masonic scholar, who holds an official position for scholarship with an important Masonic organization, let me put this as elegantly as possible: There ain't nothing there. This is the necessary preface to even being able to describe what I watched on Youtube of a video clip from RT about the story. The first thing is to state simply, the whole philosophy of Freemasonry is the opposite of the cauldron of ideas that was and is the Norwegian crazyman's mind. It is the simplest fact of verifiable history that the very resistance to Freemasonry that has occurred here and there has occurred -- precisely!! -- because Freemasonry emphasizes tolerance. It emphasizes a tolerant working within one's own country, with its laws and civil order. Just read a little history and you will see that this indeed is the reason that Freemasons have faced persecution themselves, sometimes from established religious communities as well.

With this in mind, we can see the Norwegian crazyman's ravings in a more judicious light. Because he is calling on the Pope to convert the West, that clearly does not say anything about Catholicism. But it does say something about Freemasonry and the mind of the crazyman. It makes 100% clear that there is no relation of Masonic philosophy to the toxic soup of these ideas. For while Masonic tolerance and clarity eschews the fanaticism that would be necessary to claim some relation between the Oslo nut and the Catholic Church, that self-same lack-of-fanaticism stands as a potent rebuke to the outlandish notion that his ravings could have had the least resonance within the Masonic Lodge.

To anyone with the least bit a real-world sense it is clear why he sought connection with the Masonic Lodge. Simply because, especially in Norway, it a a high-brow activity, with connections to Norwegian royalty. The crazyman apparently attended a highschool where the king went too, and so as an adult he wanted to continue his adolescent sense of entitlement. It is quite likely that he was disappointed by the Lodge, and that is why he was not active. Precisely because again, the Lodge is a place where adolescent fantasies are given no place, and mature fraternal relationship is expected.

Of course all such reality is lost on the maelstrom of concoctions known as RT, Russian TV. Their piece on what they took to be Masonic psychology as somehow related to this whole mess, simply had nothing to do with Freemasonry. I am not exaggerating. I did not hear even one phrase that could be confirmed by any reputable source of history. It was as if someone just created a word-cloud from the worst looking sites one could find by doing 5 minutes of Googling. That's all. Just pure laziness and desire to goose things up. The talk show host they had on was himself a tower of babble. He was a vortex of every false notion about Freemasonry. Literally, not one thing he could be ascertained by reading any reputable book. I always find it a bit funny how blunderbuss these types are. If they really wanted to score some points against the Craft you'd think they would base it on something that has actually been described somewhere. For instance, it is a great sorrow for all regular Masons that some irregular lodges in the south of Italy got mixed up with the Mafia. That is something that has been described by a reputable study of the Mafia. And being clear about this tragic case makes only clearer how careful regular Masonry is at keeping nefarious elements out. But being clear about these precise faults, especially in the irregular context, is not what mountebanks like Alex Jones want to do. They want to posit a paranoiac vision of no shape or size that is based in turn on a faulty notion of Masonic symbols themselves. Their reason is simple. Having to be precise is kinda boring. Cooking up fantasies is what the worst talk shows are all about, plain and simple. I really laughed when I heard him trotting- out all the old lies about Albert Pike. These are lies that were disproved ages ago, and by which a lot of people were taken in by what is known as the "Taxil Hoax". If one's research cannot even include a little Wikipedia type desire to be informed then I've got a beach resort in Siberia to sell you.

It seems that in Russia itself there are routinely crazy articles about Freemasonry. Even though there are very few Freemasons in the country ironically. Well, Catherine the Great got all worked up about Freemasonry and even wrote plays about it. This allows us a purely aesthetic comparison. Catherine's literary forays, funny as they are in the light of history, look like Shakespeare compared to the bedraggled mess of RT. So I guess I would ask, if you are going to concoct some anachronistic tales about the Craft, couldn't you take your cue from history and at least do it with a bit of finesse? At least then it might have some entertainment value, and not be just a moment of ennui, when we are forced to contemplate other people's mental dead-ends.

07/03/2011

Lights and "Light" on Veliko Tarnovo and Freemasonry in Bulgaria

By Peter Paul Fuchs, 32

It is striking that sometimes an ancient relic from the past allows some of the most current insight on today’s events. In fact the ancient castle in the old capital of Bulgaria provided the most evocative metaphor for my entire recent trip to Bulgaria, for a number of Masonic public events. I was part of a group of Brother Masons, some having held important positions in the Craft, who were privileged to enjoy a number of public celebrations on a tour of important sites for Freemasonry in Bulgaria. When we arrived in the ancient capital, we enjoyed the Light Show of Veliko Tarnovo, which provides dramatic lights and sounds on the impressive old castle gracing the hillside there. Light shows per se would hardly seem to be the place for subtle effects, and thus it was that the literal bright highlights of the show became for me a sort of, admittedly, very straightforward metaphor that could in turn highlight what was most evocative about Bulgarian Masonry. I cannot compare the Veliko Tarnovo light show to other famous ones in places I’ve been, for instance at the Pyramids of Giza, because somehow in my nearly half a century of life, I managed to miss seeing a light show as part of a visit. But I was happy and impressed to see this one, especially since it helped me to understand other things I experienced in the country.

One interesting fact is that this light show was around before others in the world which are more famous. In fact, I was surprised to learn that it was one of the last big projects in the last gasps of the communist state. Somehow the bright colors and feel-good music seem a quirky fit with the usual assumptions about communist era drabness. In fact, the bright colors seem more in line with the day-glo colors recently used by a Banksy-style provacateur who, as reported in the Sofia English-language newspaper The Echo given out at the Kempinski in Sofia, did a little creative art sabotage. A Soviet era sculpture in Sofia was painted in bright capitalist colors, and each of the figures made to resemble a comics super-hero. Like the irrepressibility this suggests, the strength of emotion and vigor that I experienced in Bulgarian Masonry suggests something more broadly. Namely, that even in the past, during the communist period, Bulgarians remained a vibrant people. Thus, this communist-era creation of lights on the ancient castle of Tarnovo suggests that Bulgarians are deeply in touch with their own history in a very profound way. In turn, this reflects in their Masonry.

For one of the surprises for me is the extent to which a spirit of national pride imbues the Masonic world there. I shouldn’t have been surprised because in the course of recently editing a book on Bulgarian Freemasonry, which will soon be published, I had learned that virtually all the Bulgarian Premiers since World War II have been members of the Craft. But it is more powerful to experience this sense of national pride up close from a large number of Brothers. It is not that such pride does not exist in American Masonry, for it surely does. Yet it in Bulgaria it takes on a “vibe“ of more deep identification with ancient history in Bulgarian Masonry, and this precisely is what is special. The ancient castle of Veliko Tarnovo, bathed in rich colors, could not have been a better metaphor for this vibrancy therefore.

Because of this strong sense of identification, Masonry in Bulgaria has an intensity which is very close at hand. There have been some internecine squabbles in Bulgarian Masonry in recent history, but it is clear that the powerful drive to unifying feeling bodes very well for their eventual resolution, And if the presence of Brother Masons from around the world for a visit is one more little push in the direction of healing, then that will certainly be a blessing of the Grand Architect.

Such a blessing would be richly deserved, from the perspective of the visitors, for we were shown the greatest courtesy and respect. It would have been very hard not to have a great time in such an atmosphere. The delicious food which we experienced at a number of Masonic banquets was quite amazing. A curious fact of Soviet era history is that Bulgaria was considered the vegetable- basket of the communist world, and it is easy now to understand why. In the city of Karjali we had a fabulous lunch at the restaurant owned by a Brother there, by the name of Detchko. A first course of eggplants in tomato sauce was heartbreakingly delicious. The gulf that separates the taste of those eggplants and what obtains by the same name in the U.S. is just incredible. For the same luncheon two whole lambs had been prepared, and the meat had a lightness and fragrance that was very delightful. The good food was all accompanied by strong folk entertainments and music, including from a Bulgarian bagpipe which looked like something straight out of a Pieter Brueghel painting. All accompanied as well by great Bulgarian wine, which is across the board excellent in the country no matter where you go. My partner Paul, who was on the trip with me, often commented that the wine was so good some entrepreneur in the U.S. in the might well make a mint by importing it!

It is somewhat amazing that they have not gotten around to importing more of their wine more effectively because Bulgarian seems very intent on focusing on its cultural riches. I saw no less than two whole television channels devoted exclusively to Bulgarian folk dance and music! One can only say that the famous show Riverdance has nothing on the vigorous sonic riveting of these folk music riffs of Bulgaria. Though that it is often hard for an outsider to tell the pieces apart, is no great surprise. National pride in music, art, or even history itself has its own inexorable laws, and subtlety is not one of them. Similarly, if there were moments in the public events when the swellings of national pride led to a number of observations of distant, fraught historical events which seemed more like rosy -scenarios, then one can also observe that such are often to be found in all countries, and therefore not terribly surprising. What was surprising, and also extremely inspirational for me, and others on the trip, was the almost aesthetic beauty of the Craft in Bulgaria. Very elegant new Lodges designed with the most refined contemporary sense of artistry spoke for of a very modern yet historically informed Craft with evocative details such as blond woods, and even a modernist -looking gong, used, one assumes, to call the Craft to Labor. And it is a significant fact that these Lodges were built by the Brothers themselves, showing in very loving and obvious devotion in the details and finishes everywhere. This was also very evident in the beautiful Lodge room we saw in the Masonic Temple located right next to the famous Mineral Baths resort we visited. But, more broadly on the whole trip, the most evocative of all this aesthetically was the very striking monument for founding pioneer of the Freemasonry in Bulgaria, Ivan Vedder, in Razgrad. It features as a huge creased triangle in which the noble head of Vedder seems to float, crowned by Masonic symbols. We were privileged to be present for the now-yearly celebration at the monument for this famous hero. The presence of the local mayor, and the town youth band, and assembled citizens, left a telling impression. Freemasonry in Bulgaria is a deep part of the national identity there in a very unvexed and natural manner. It is a wonderful cultural fact of their lives that the same Craft that supports tolerance and freedom, mixes so easily and effortlessly with their civic pride, and even religious pride. So, famous churchmen of the Orthodox clergy in Bulgaria’s history are celebrated on Lodge walls with portraits, in full Orthodox clerical dress! And icons to be found in the Orthodox Church, find an honored place on Lodge walls as well. Even in Lodges, as we saw, that have Muslims as members. It all speaks of a Freemasonry beautifully untroubled with religious-secular conundrums. Masonry in the rest of the world has, in this regard especially, something really to admire in Bulgaria in this very noble and mature aspect of development in the Craft.

I am sure I speak for all who were on this visit to express great gratitude for the very striking and enjoyable experience.

06/20/2011

Repost of part of the Enigmatic Code paper.

I was recently in Atlanta, and had access to a library collection there in which I came across a very useful citation for this paper. So, I am reposting Section 3 with the new quote added, since I think it offers a importantly explicit support for the approach of the paper:

Part 3 of "Enigmatic Code":

The Pressure for Code, The Cultural Amplitude of the South

We have seen that Charleston, as the birthplace of the Scottish Rite’s Mother Council had special characteristics. But it is obvious that these peculiarities only have significance in terms of the cultural amplitude of the South in general during the period. And to understand how the whole notion of a code of rhetoric or, in the Scottish Rite’s case, ritual as well, we must understand the wider sense of things. To do this with justice and fairness in line with the standard of the best scholarship on the South we must, on the one hand, avoid the “the judgmental – even condemnatory – approach in many earlier explorations of southern thought,” which Drew Gilpin Faust identified in his detailed study of historiographical trends of scholarship on the South. Rather we should allow this uninformative tack to be “replaced by an effort to trace the connections between expressed beliefs [in the South] and a region’s way of life.” This can only mean historiographically, as Faust makes clear by citing the trenchant words of Michael O’Brien, that the intellectual life of the South be allowed to “define its own terms.” [Note/ Drew Gilpin Faust. “The Peculiar South Revisited: White Society, Culture, and Politics in the Antebellum Period, 1800-1868,” in Interpreting Southern History: Historiographical Essays in Honor of Sanford Higgenbotham. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987, p. 99. ] But the most recent scholarship on the South of the period also abundantly makes clear that we run into a large problem in trying to gauge this. As a number of scholars has described, but perhaps none better than David Goldfield/31 , the whole sense that one tends to get from the South is covered with a blanket of preconception. These preconceptions would make it practically impossible to properly assess the cultural impetus for people in such a distant period. For following the Civil War:

“The invention of the Old South gave white southerners a tradition, a sense of continuity in a destabilized postwar world…. They needed a sterling vision of the Old South…By creating a history from the story of the Old South…they erected a legend to live by and for. Their history, like all good traditions, scrambled time… white southerners often publicly professed good riddance to slavery in the postwar years, but they protested its shortcomings a bit too much. They cited the institution’s burdens on masters and how it hampered the southern economy and limited opportunities for poorer whites. To hear them, one would think the Emancipation Proclamation liberated southern whites as much as black slaves.”/32

Clearly if we are to accurately gauge a more difficult -to -decipher phenomenon in the Southern past we have to do so without these fanciful preconceptions. Curiously this is important both in the positive and negative directions. As Goldfield makes amply clear, the devotion to these preconceptions blinkers real insight on what the Southern society was really like. Surely we miss the previous intellectual dynamism of some sectors of society in the South if we buy into this odd sense that developed post-Civil War where, “[in] defeat whites recognized the path of their salvation.”/33 In other words, they made a religion, and a worldview out of defeat. This also involved worshipping and orienting themselves primarily to the past, not as a dynamic moment in time, however freighted with contradictions, but as an idealized, frozen moment. The issue is only made more complex by the fact that at certain social levels Southern society, before the ramping- up to the war, was noted for a significant independence of mind. One of course can scarcely appreciate this previously dynamic state if we do not face squarely that in post-Civil War era, “[s]ecular obedience overcame a religious tradition once noted for its individuality.”/34

Further, this secular obedience de-emphasized learning and intellectual development in general because thinking per se was perceived as threatening to the nostalgic system. This happened to such an extent that it had real, tangible results on the educational level in South, even at the highest levels after the Civil War. Again, we miss any chance of accurately coming to terms with the real character of the Southern past if we do recognize that something quite opposite prevailed before, contrary to popular misconception:

“This planter class was an educated elite. In contrast to the South’s general backwardness in public schools, great stress was placed on higher education. ‘If college attendance is any test of an educated people, the South had more educated men and women in proportion to [white] population than the North, or any part of the world. ‘[!]”/35 [emphasis added]

One can only marvel at the last contention. Even if the contention was only close to the truth on a worldwide level –as such things would be very hard to assess surely – it calls for a radically different perception of the position of these Southern intellectuals in world culture. And this is particularly important in assessing the historically and culturally significant fact that as a profound and humane vision of the world’s religions, the Scottish Rite, had the genesis of its Mother Council in an educational environment that was proportionally stronger perhaps than, “any part of the world.”

Thus, as we have noticed there are some positive effects from disabusing ourselves from the preconceptions that Goldfield has outlined. On the other had, doing so also pulls the rug out from under the misconception that somehow Southern society was humanely groaning its way out of its terrible “peculiar institution”. The reasonableness of Goldfield’s contentions are only confirmed by the fact that we can read its insights as confirmed by an important older source on the period, which makes a crucial and analogous point:

“Socially as well as economically the plantation played an enormously important role in Southern life; for the entire region the plantation gentry became ‘the model for social aspiration.’ For the urban and professional classes the plantation seemed the one sure road to social reputability, and there was ‘a decided tendency for lawyer, doctor, carpenter, merchant, and tailor to move into agriculture, as fast as the accumulation of capital would permit’ Despite the ’concentration of wealth, slaves, and power in the hands of the few,’ Roger W. Shugg has found, ‘little resentment was expressed by the less fortunate minority.’ …[They] saw the neighboring planters as somewhat more successful but by no means superior beings, to whom they were often related by blood or marriage. As Cash astutely remarks, ‘If the plantation had introduced distinctions of rank and wealth among men of the old backcountry, and, in doing so, had perhaps offended against the ego of the common white, it had also…introduced that other vastly ego-warming and ego-expanding distinction between the white man and the black.’”/36

I believe it is significant that this summary from Randall’s famous standard reference book on the Civil War, which was brought up to date by Donald’s revision, in fact confirms the views of Goldfield. We can easily understand by this summary the great sense of complacency that under-girded the continuation of the slavery system. Thus, as we have said, disabusing ourselves of the notion of the Old South becomes clearer as having an intrinsically dual purpose both in positive and negative references. This is particularly crucial for the ability to understand the appearance of the Scottish Rite. For the question becomes, where did the sense of independence of mind come from that characterizes the Rituals of the Scottish Rite in an environment, which was increasingly hostile to freedom of thought? This questioned is only sharpened by the knowledge we have gained about the current of independence of thought and mind encouraged by high levels of education in the South at this period.

Another way to understand this independence of mind is by addressing a much under-appreciated fact of the development of the Southern ethos that relates to its colonial past. Specifically, as evidence of this phenomenon we can look to the literary phenomenon of “promotional pamphlets” from the colonial period, which sought to convince and attract prospective white citizens from the Old World . Unlike the rigid class hierarchy of Britain, these promotional pamphlets spoke of a different type of world:

“Though few were aware of it, what promoters depicted was a world in fundamental conflict with paternalistic values . They advertised a fluid social order while tradition glorified social stasis. They spoke of equality of opportunity where paternalists assumed inequality and stratification. The pamphlets they distributed among anxious Europeans stressed the importance of individualism and hard work with the promise of material reward, but paternalistic ideology stressed the mutual obligations of all members within a community. In short, the ideals implicit in the promotional literature were far different from those assumed by the slaveholding “gentlemen” who had fitted bondage so neatly into their conceptual order.”/37

This literature had a profound effect on the type of person that came to the South from the Old World. It drew people given to that sense of individualism. The picture then is created of a Southern ethos that is profoundly in conflict with itself from very early in its existence, because some of the earliest influences were from the English aristocratic tradition as reflected in some of the richest in the South. Whereas other influences came from more skeptical, individually minded folks drawn by the pamphlets’ vision of a place where you could make good. As James Oakes makes tremendously clear in his admirable summary, what drew people particularly to the South was the ability to have independent means of making a go of it in life. In addition, there were particularities in this such as the “Scotch-Irish [who] brought to the new World an almost religious devotion to the principles of free enterprise. Add to this their deep antipathy toward all things English and aristocratic…their sheer numbers helped change the character of the typical master from the haughty English gentlemen of the seventeenth century to the democratic entrepreneur of the nineteenth.”/38

This cultural set-up makes it easy, I contend, to explain the co-existence of a sort of static religiosity, which supported the social order, including slavery, and an opposing tendency toward religious questioning based on an independent, entrepreneurial spirit. It is beyond the scope of this argument to delimit, as Oakes expertly does, the many variables of personal questioning of the slavery-system, based on diaries and letters, and the need to support their – to them – very real capital investment. But it is crucial to see this as a dynamic environment, all the same, with many conflicting interests, and not the staid set-up of the “Old South” so well critiqued by Goldfield. This sense is only bolstered by summary notions like the following:

“Thus, the evidence is conflicting. Antebellum slaveholders counted in their ranks a disproportionate share of the nation’s wealthiest citizens, yet this very concentration of wealth set the planter aristocracy apart from most slaveholders. The economic structure of the slaveholding class changed little in the decades before the Civil War, indicating social stability. Yet there was a dramatic increase in the number of slaveholders, significant upward mobility, and pervasive demographic restlessness among slaveholders as well. Concentration and diffusion, stagnation and fluidity were all characteristics of the slaveholding class. What is missing from such dichotomies is the vast array of individual variations that, by their complexity, force re-examination of the nature of slaveholding in America. With the economic paradoxes of the antebellum South, we have only begun to sense the diversity of American slaveholders.”/39

What should be clear from Oakes’ description is the quite dynamic sense of the culture. Yet these “dichotomies” existed in a social framework, and the glue was the sense of aspiration amongst the less rich to one day be amongst the wealthier, which inexorably meant participation in the slavery system. But for our purposes we can also see that these “dichotomies” directly have an effect on religious intuitions as well. “The only philosophical justification of slavery that ever gained any real popularity among slaveholders was the religious one….”/40 But if we connect this fact with the evidence of great education amongst many, which surely included philosophy, we are left ineluctably with a vast area of unspoken and unarticulated philosophical questioning and speculation. I believe it is precisely in this realm that the Southern need for a Code emerged. In addition, the potentially philosophical, or perhaps suppressedly philosophical nature of that realm would explain the need for an enigmatic rhetoric or expression. There is sufficient evidence to say that the Southern ethos contained a real insight into human freedom, but it was of course embedded in a tragically conflicting background. James Oakes has recently even made this more clear in a notably public forum, and spoken with a simplicity unlike his usually complex scholarly arguments: “… slavery is freedom turned upside down… in a peculiar way…the study of slavery [is] helpful in understanding what freedom is…”/41 It is surely reasonable that this unspoken sense could have found some sort of attempt at articulation in the tendency to express a deep sense of freedom. In other words, if it was not socially acceptable to express it in direct philosophical exposition, it had to be hidden in symbolism. And the circumstances might have made it hard to even face these realities in one’s own self. This sense opens the possibility that people yearned to express a freedom, which they even hid from themselves.

As we begin to narrow this notion down on the Scottish Rite’s Mother Council in this odd environment, let us do so respectfully both of the tragic circumstances which cannot be avoided in an analysis, and on the evidence of real people trying to make something philosophically interesting and partially valid of their lives. We can see it as an attempt for some congruence in a very incongruent culture. The field open before us then, I suggest is one in which profound religious intuition and symbolic insight could exist in a very tangible and monumental way. But this needs to be balanced with the sense that what was clearly not present was any great moral heroism or prescience. In this sense the “happy amalgam of Protestants, Jews and Catholics of diverse occupations,”/42 that make up the “Eleven Gentlemen” who were the founders of the Scottish Rite may not be particularly noteworthy or above- the- average for moral foresight or prowess. But by their very accepting diversity, in thought and religious inclination, they can be said to be quite profound in their religious-philosophical vision and fore-vision. That this paradox could have realistically existed, is much more consistent with the cultural facts and tendencies I have delimited, and much more descriptive and realistic even to tragic realities, than the simple charge of hypocrisy ever could be.

This sense is only sharpened if we go from the general cultural sense of the South, to the particularities of Charleston. which ultimately must always be our focus for the genesis of the Scottish Rite. Charleston had a marked tendency towards a more paternalistic ethos even in the broader economic environment, based precisely on an economic factor:

“The slave holders in this perimeter were set of from the majority of masters not simply by their extraordinary wealth but by the physical and social stability that wealth produced. To a large extent this was because they grew crops that were consistently profitable and could not be grown elsewhere: rice in the South Carolina lowlands….”/43

So by dint of the very stable wealth of many of its citizens, Charleston represented a rather unique combination of influences. And this reflected in the day-to-day peculiarities of the place. As we have seen, firstly, the phenomenon of close proximity of the bondsmen day-to-day in the city with white persons. But also a distinctly paternalistic culture that contrasted sharply with other parts of the South, which tended toward more materialistic and entrepreneurial, which often meant more harsh. Indeed, a large part of the paternalistic ethos involved the rejection of materialism, and emphasis on spiritual values by contrast. As well as the emphasis on transcendent notions of family and community, which even included the bondsmen./44 These paternalists were much more likely to think of the bondsmen as “members of the family,” than more materialistic types.

Paternalists were also much less likely to ever engage in secessionist talk, and added complex opprobrium to any political arguments for the dissolution of the Union. Thus their standpoint might have appeared in some way as oddly liberal compared to others in the South on many matters, compared to more entrepreneurial types who had a more starkly conservative bottom-line thinking. This may go a long way in explaining the unique character of Charleston in terms of the treatment of the bondsmen. This involves a sense that is extremely difficult to appreciate now. Because they held anti-secessionists, pro-Union views, in common with many in the North (who were “liberal” in perhaps a different sense than they were), their feelings about their personal locus in their “Capital,” Charleston, would had to have been quite curious indeed from our historical vantage point. Based on all the evidence of how these people in fact thought about themselves, I believe we labor under a false presumption about what Charleston would have been psychologically for them. For us today it appears as an exquisite locus of tradition of a very conservative upper- crust sort./45 A place where everyone seems to be well-born, as an analyst quite close to our own day noted: “Claims to high birth are so usual in South Carolina that to admit to belonging to the middle class is to admit that you don’t belong.”/46 Unlike our current conception, paternalists of that period did not comprise the total population, though their world-view certainly ruled. This ambiguity between having the guiding or reigning world-view in a place, and being the most significant citizens, and yet not comprising the population thoroughly was a recipe for underlying anxiety. Thus, the sense we later associate with Charleston of staid tradition must be replaced with a sense that conveys the foment inherent to the contradictions of the place. Thus significantly, while prizing stability, paternalist patricians necessarily and habitually would have included a deeply dynamic view of this stability. In their world-view, since everything and everyone had their proper place, there could be considerable, easy-going liberality within that stratified system.

But the paternalist- tending types, that made up still a substantial portion of the white population of Charleston, also thought of themselves as the epitome of “good sense,” again in the manner of an unaffected liberality. They would have made the assumption, which seems strange from our historical vantage point, that like all dwellers in national capitals they were in a cutting -edge milieu where matters of import were decided and advanced ideas debated. This helps explain the widely noticed phenomenon of their condescension to those actually involved in the ultimate locus of politics in the country. They would have seen the real Capital of the country, Washington D.C. as having become, as one unique analyst has so revealingly put it, as an “experiment station” for the rights of blacks locally even under pre-emancipation laws/47 . We can deduce that the paternalists of Charleston thought of themselves as having just the right attitude towards the bondsmen, which in fact would have appeared strikingly liberal compared to many outside a paternalist center like Charleston. In other words, for them those in the “South’s Capital” had done the “experiment” just right, unlike the social laboratory created in the “Nation’s Capital.” (Recall the curious phenomenon of how liberally the bondsmen had access to independent mode of employment in Charleston.) They would have felt that they had struck the right balance, to avoid having Charleston become a mere ”experiment station” like Washington D.C.

This explains how they thought of themselves as rather cutting-edge in the religious training and education of the bondsmen./48 “Charlestonians really believed…that ‘they had the perfect society…Charleston thus became the center of an idea, a southern way of life. And from this center these ideas began to penetrate throughout….’”/49 In this sense, we can surmise that they would have seen Charleston as the real intellectual Capital of the country as they experienced it. That is, though they were ardent supporters of the Union’50 , the actual Capital had been co-opted into mere local matters of the place as an ”experiment station.” Thus even though, anti-secessionist and pro-Union, they would have thought of Charleston as the default or de facto Capital./51 Of course all of their views of their situation appear very perplexing to us indeed, and in reality likely to have provoked underlying anxiety in them, even if they thought in terms of great stability.

From a potential philosophical perspective, however, this unique environment, and their even more curious and perhaps grandiose self-perception of it, set the essential instability of the situation in sharper relief. It only heightens the potential contradiction and the need for a philosophical pressure- reliever of sorts. As Larry Tise, author of the most comprehensive study of proslavery ideology, especially as it involved those in the religious- clerical state, has perceptively noted:

“Instead of keeping to the defense of slavery as a perpetual institution of southern society, Charleston’s proslavery writers of 1822 and 1823 attempted to defend an escape from an intense emotional crisis.”/52 [italics added]

Further, we can read Tise’s observation in comparison to his reflections about other locales in the South to mean that this sense of “emotional crisis” was particularly sharp for those in Charleston. Because of this sense, I believe we are justified in seeing Frederick Dalcho and the others as symbolic of people immersed in these conflicting tendencies based on their local culture. With all the foregoing, it is not unreasonable therefore to read some words from his sermons as indicative of some sort of underlying sense that there was a greater sense than the prevailing order allowed:

“[Freemasonry] sees in every man a Brother, and where misfortune and want too often disperse and estrange both relations and acquaintances, there are ]Freemasonry’s] principles called into most active exertion.”/53

It seems perspicacious to understand men like Dalcho as seeing in Freemasonry a way of expressing their own incongruities. As we said previously, how else can one read the profound de-centralization of orthodox Christian faith that Freemasonry represents generally, and the Scottish Rite in particular, in such a cultural environment? If, by contrast, every scholarly source makes clear in clarion tones that orthodox religiosity was the most constant source of justification for bolstering the rigid system of slavery, there seems little doubt that the de-centralized vision Freemasonry must have represented something else for these men. The facts are that even with this being so, it did not represent something that could push them into a more morally heroic inclination. That is unfortunate. But if they were like most average people of their time in this respect, that does not mean that they were not different in the intuitive and symbolic talent and needed to express their own nettlesome incongruities which can be read between the lines. The beauty of the rituals is a potent and ultimately unavoidable evidence of this. And I will suggest as we conclude this paper that this deeper sense can be read into the Rituals and ethos of the Scottish Rite, as the intriguing Code of the South to which it gave expression.

06/03/2011

Response to Papenheim, by Peter Paul Fuchs

In re: "Albert Pike's and Eugene Goblet d'Alviella's reforms of the Scottish Rite and the theory of religion in the late nineteenth century." by Martin Papenheim. Presented May, 27, 2011 at the Third International Conference on the History of Freemasonry, The George Washington National Memorial, Alexandria, Virginia.

As the author of a significant study of Albert Pike's thought, especially in light of the intellectual sources of this philosophy contained in his much-treasured personal library, I certainly took note of this paper by Martin Papenheim (University of Bielefeld). The journal Heredom, considered one of the very top sources of Masonic research, published by the Scottish Rite Research Society, has been had a number of very serious studies of Pike's works, both in terms of its relation to i realistic intellectual climate, generally, and Masonic ambits, particularly. What is common to all of the them has been the desire to set Pike in a context that was socially realistic for what he actually lived. This must be sharply distinguished from the regrettable myths that grew up later about the man, many of which were connected pure fabrication related to him, namely the infamous Taxil hoax. This is not the place to rehearse these matters, as they are available for study by simply reading the serious scholarship on Pike. One needs only to mention giants of Pike research like De Hoyos and Hutchens, and their many works on the subject, if read carefully, will give a forceful guide to a more serious consideration of the man.

But it seems that the academic world in Europe has suddenly seen in Pike some sort of tempting fertile ground to try out a few exercises in broad-brush social/cultural theory. And we had an strange person to be attempting such conceptual calisthenics. This is the only explanation I can discern for the very odd paper by Martin Papenheim of Germany for the Third International Conference on the History of Freemasonry. His paper was intoned with great seriousness, so that one can only assume it was meant so. But Papenheim seemed to not have any sense whatsoever of the cumulative insights of the now considerable scholarship on the man. Or perhaps it indicated only a glancing acquaintance. Whatever the case, the bedrock would seem to be, first of all, the very detailed biography by Brown of Albert Pike.

If one had read Brown's biography, it would be hard to make the assertions about the man that Papenheim made. So, my basic point is, one does not even need to get into more high-flown matters of philosophy to make the point. What is massively clear from Brown's work is that Pike's life was chock-a-block with diverse commitments, legal, familial, military, journalistic, entrepreneurial, and artistic (mostly poetry). Somehow in the midst of all this, the man had the amazing wherewithal to become one the central figures in American Freemasonry. But the important hermeneutical fact is that he did it while committed to many other things. Any account of his thought that fails to take this into account is imperiled from the start. As both Hutchens and De Hoyos have emphasized, which I echoed in my paper "Incense to the Intellect: The Albert Pike Library (Heredom, 2009), Pike's Masonic works were not aimed at a general audience at all, in any way. I develop this point by pointing out that this is consistent with the standard work of social science on Freemasonry in America, by Dumenil, clarifying that until the 1920's Masonic Lodges had more the character of insular "asylums" from the normal world. So the idea that Pike was writing his Masonic works to affect the larger culture, or as part of some larger cultural campaign as Papenheim stressed, simply is completely false. It is a simple category mistake. Pike's intentions must be distinguished from the later use that others made of his works, particular as a result of, or in reaction to the Taxil hoax. A great confirmation of this fact is the simple and instructive nineteenth century evidence of bibliographies of Pike from the period. I quote one of them in my research showing that Pike was listed as the author of poetry and legal studies, nothing else. His Masonic works were scarcely known at all, and seemed not to exist, even amazingly when it was known that he held a high Masonic position.

Martin Papeneheim's paper was so wrong -headed and poorly sourced that I could not make heads nor tails of it ultimately. After the Conference I looked over some other books and came up with the real source for his odd amalgam. There are a number of old Catholic books which significantly try to tar Pike with the very same brush. The idea was simply to portray Pike as someone engaged in some sort of culture war. One would have thought that this idea would have died out completely given the revelations of later scholarship. As I said above, at the very least, on the simple basis of Brown's complex biography. Further, the assertions in Papenheim's abstract about the nature of current Pike studies just seems quite detached from reality.

No one who seriously works on Pike thinks of him as a perfect character. He was a fascinatingly complex figure of sui generis profundity. His real nature has been obscured by a number of truly ideological caricatures. I am afraid the worst thing that can be said about Papenheim's approach was that it was that, simply a caricature.